(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission and the European Central Bank on Monday launched the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), a plan to facilitate and harmonise European financial transfers.

SEPA covers the 27 EU member states plus Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland and Switzerland.

The SEPA system will enable people to make payments throughout the euro area "as quickly, safely and easily as they make national payments," the EU's executive arm said in a statement.

Under SEPA, all euro payments are considered domestic and are made with one set of payment instruments.

The Commission sees the system as "a natural progression" to the introduction of the euro.

"As with euro notes and coins, there will finally be no difference between sending a payment from Rome to Frankfurt or Vienna to Salzburg - all euro payment will be 'domestic'," said European Central Bank director Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, presenting the initiative in Brussels.

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